Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

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Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

I would like to announce the creation of a new academic competition for high school students, The United States Geography Challenge. For over twenty years, the National Geographic Society has run the National Geography Bee for 4-8 graders - numerous quizbowlers have certainly competed in this over the years. However, as students move into high school, there has not been a comparable nationwide geography academic competition - the USGC is meant to remedy this. Moreover, since 1996, there has been an International Geography Olympiad - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... y_Olympiad - though an American team has never attended. This has been primarily due to the lack of a nationwide qualifying competition in the USA - the USGC is meant to remedy this too. While I am awaiting final approval, I have been in touch with both the organizers of the International Geography Olympiad and the National Council for Geography Education, and they have both been supportive of my efforts to organize a US team. My efforts, among other things, have included attending the 2012 IGO in Cologne and the NCGE national conference earlier this month in San Marcos, Texas.

Here's how the USGC is going to work. While the USGC is not formally a part of NHBB (organizationally, it's distinct), at every NHBB Regional and State tournament, during the lunch break, any student who is interested can take a 50 question multiple choice geography exam. Like NHBB, three different exams will be offered corresponding to our A, B, and C set tournaments. The cost for taking the exam is $10. Students who then finish in the top half of the exam at any given site, or in the top half from all results nationally (by a cutoff date in mid-March) can then qualify for our National Championships. This will be held on Friday evening, April 26, 2013 in conjunction with NHBB Nationals weekend; the cost is $60. The National Championships will feature a 3 part competition, with a multi-media multiple choice exam and a written response exam taking place from roughly 4:30pm-6pm at Nationals followed by a buzzer-based tournament from 8-10:30pm that evening. HSAPQ has agreed to write the questions for that. The other two portions of Nationals are included as they mirror the format of 2 of the 3 parts of the International Geography Olympiad (which, doesn't, at least so far, officially have a buzzer-based component). The third part of the IGO for those curious, is a "field exercise" which is not practical for us to run, so the buzzer tournament (probably of more interest to those reading this) replaces that at our Nationals.

At both Regionals and Nationals, there will be JV and Varsity divisions, though these will work not on the basis of grade, but rather by birthdate (the cutoff date is July 1, 1997), since the IGO organizers will only allow people born after this date to attend IGO. The top finishers in each part of the Varsity division at Nationals (i.e. the two exams and the buzzer tournament) along with the top overall scorer from all 3 parts combined will then qualify to be on Team USA, and, pending final approval, attend the 2013 International Geography Olympiad in Kyoto, Japan. We are hoping to secure funding to cover travel expenses.

In the future, I would like to detach the USGC from NHBB at the regional level, and hold tournaments afterschool instead, which will have a buzzer-based component. That's a logistical bridge too far for this year, though, and whether we do that in 2013-2014 will depend on large part on the interest level we get this year. Like NHBB, hopefully the USGC can also bring some new people and schools (in this case, Geography Bee veterans who aren't otherwise already involved in quizbowl) into the community.

Finally, just some answers to other questions people might have:
1. The "United States" part of the name refers to it being a nationwide competition; in actuality, only about 25% of the questions will be on US Geography.
2. This is solely an individual student competition; there is no Bowl or team component. The buzzer tournament component of Nationals will function in very much the same way a History Bee does regarding scoring.
3. Middle schoolers are welcome to compete in the JV division, but we're targeting this competition really to high schoolers.
4. I am working on this in conjunction with Enrico Contolini, the father of a former Geography Bee student who had also expressed an interest in helping to organize a high school geography competition. He will help in particular with processing the regional scores; thus running the USGC should not detract from my responsibilities running NHBB. We will also ensure that Nationals is well-organized; students will need to register well in advance. Participating students will receive their room schedules prior to coming to Washington (though of course we will have extra copies of the schedules there if needed). The Nationals competition will take place entirely at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA (the NHBB Nationals hotel).
5. Students competing in the National Championships will be unable to compete in the Sports History Bee or Entertainment History Bee. If room space is limited, first priority will be given to the USGC.
6. The website (with more details) is at http://www.usgeochallenge.com
7. A distribution of questions and a sample regional exam will be posted on the website very shortly - probably by Thursday of this week.
8. The Nationals tossups will be decidedly easier than most Geography Monstrosity tossups (for those familiar with that). They will be at the level of Nationals-caliber questions focusing on geography, or very slightly harder.
9. If you have any other questions, please let me know, or post here.
Good luck!
Last edited by Great Bustard on Tue Oct 16, 2012 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by AKKOLADE »

I will give you a dollar, U.S., if you double space your longer posts.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

So it's been a while since I saw this. I've been rather stunned looking at this, enough so that I didn't post for a few days, but I think I will now.

To put it shortly, I have no idea why you think you are capable of handling this right now. Last year's NHBB Nationals was by all accounts a complete logistical disaster, and your one task for this year was supposed to be making sure NHBB Nationals went well, setting other things aside to make said non-disaster outcome happen. Why did you go forward on a distinct competition this year, when your foremost goal is to show that you can run your original Bee and Bowl competently? When you suddenly announce that you're adding a whole new competition to your plate, right now, for the same weekend as NHBB, when your staffing pool is already way lower than it was supposed to be, which is running at the literal same time as the Trash Bees which you claim are necessary to attract staff, you should understand that it doesn't exactly increase the community's confidence in your efforts. Even if this is a great idea (and I think this is a pretty cool thing, actually, being a former GeoBee participant myself) I'm unsure why you didn't want until 2014, when NHBB's reputation would be more secure.

I want History Bowl to succeed, and I don't think it can do so if your attentions are divided. I want to make sure you're not piling up a stack of commitments higher and higher such that they all eventualy collapse, and it seems like a good way to avoid that scenario is to STOP ADDING EXTRA THINGS to your competition-directing life and just focus on making the existing ones work. Especially since NHB in many senses still needs fixing.

Since this legitimate competition has to run on Friday night, and it has to use the same time and the same staffer corps as the Trash "Bees," you should probably just cancel the Trash Bees outright and run the legitimate event instead.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by ProfessorIanDuncan »

Since this legitimate competition has to run on Friday night, and it has to use the same time and the same staffer corps as the Trash "Bees," you should probably just cancel the Trash Bees outright and run the legitimate event instead.
When David was announcing this at a tournament that he was moderating for, he did indeed state that the Sports and Entertainment Bee would be eliminated.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

ProfessorIanDuncan wrote:
Since this legitimate competition has to run on Friday night, and it has to use the same time and the same staffer corps as the Trash "Bees," you should probably just cancel the Trash Bees outright and run the legitimate event instead.
When David was announcing this at a tournament that he was moderating for, he did indeed state that the Sports and Entertainment Bee would be eliminated.
No, that was not what I meant. What I meant was that students who are competing in the Geography Challenge Nationals will not be able to do the Sports and Entertainment Bees, not that they would be eliminated altogether. I'll have a more comprehensive response to Matt's comments tomorrow, but I'll just say that in the first two weekends of the US Geography Challenge Regional Exams, already 42 students have competed, so clearly, once again, we're doing something here that people are excited to have the opportunity to compete in.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Sniper, No Sniping! »

nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:already 42 students have competed, so clearly, once again, we're doing something here that people are excited to have the opportunity to compete in.
Yeah, I find it highly unlikely among these 42 students that there's a student who has gone to both NHBB Nats and NAQT/NSC, and would therefore have a realistic and higher expectation of how a national competition should run. To even go further, how many actually attended an NHBB Nationals competition before?

Those 42 students are not the "community". I'm willing to bet a decent percentage of those students find playing sub-optimal :chip: to be "fun" and "worthwhile". This past year you had powerhouses like LASA, Dorman, DCC, Hunter, Bellarmine, etc, all of whom have been in contention for national titles at HSNCT and/or NSC of recent, come to NHBB Nationals. Did you ever think to take a deep look to their opinions and evaluate their confidence in you and your tournament directing abilities (you know, since they, as did all the other teams that were there, shelled out a :capybara: load of money to come to D.C. to play your tournament) before you decided to go forward and add another irrelevant, expensive competition to your slate of events? Especially after the fact it was revealed that the pool of potential staffers significantly got smaller as a result of the date of NHBB Nationals coinciding with ACF Nationals?

In my case, what's infuriating is having to personally put some of my money into our NHBB fund, for everything to be run late, dysfunctional, having competitions like the actual History Bee getting cut because of your inadequate preparations and then several months later being told "oh, we're adding another new awesome competition to our slate of events. I don't care what you have to say because I have 42 students who likely aren't good at quiz bowl who think I'm doing an awesome thing". In hindsight, I wouldn't have minded playing pseudo-History Bowl competition by getting a parent to download the History Bowl packets a few months later and playing against my teammates in the comfort of my own home for the astonishing cost of $0.

I wouldn't mind doing the regional History Bowl & Bee competition at Ohio State in March, especially since it's one of the cheaper things I'll get to go to, and it's 30 minutes from my house. I wouldn't mind doing the GeoBee exam, because why the hell not? But what makes me and my team mates wary of doing NHBB nationals is the fact you've presented zero effective, problem-solving solutions to fixing what was the absolutely the worst tournament we've ever attended for next year.

One thing you can ultimately do to help the confidence of those who may actually have something invested, be it interest or money, towards your tournament is to get rid of the trash and Jeopardy events. Most people don't care about that. If they did, we'd likely see them pop up at NSC or HSNCT by now. Your competition is far from perfect, and in the eyes of many, its far from worth paying into.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:already 42 students have competed, so clearly, once again, we're doing something here that people are excited to have the opportunity to compete in.
Yeah, I find it highly unlikely among these 42 students that there's a student who has gone to both NHBB Nats and NAQT/NSC, and would therefore have a realistic and higher expectation of how a national competition should run. To even go further, how many actually attended an NHBB Nationals competition before?
Actually, quite a few have gone to both, since the schools that were represented among people who took the test in Georgia (which I directed yesterday, Greg Bossick can speak for Ohio) were as follows:
South Forsyth (competed at both last year, though not, at least for HSNCT, the particular students who took the exam yesterday)
Westminster (had a team of 1 yesterday - that student has played at MSNCT and in the Bee at NHBB)
River Ridge (team of 1 yesterday - was a 9th grader new to all forms of qb)
Athens Academy (has been to both - 3 students who took test yesterday played at HSNCT last year)
Lakeside, GA (team of 1 yesterday - was a 9th or 10th grader)
Lowcountry Homeschool Association (yesterday was their first time ever at any tournament)
Prince Avenue Christian (had 1 student in the Bee last year at NHBB, though that student did not take test)
Fulton Science (NHBB only last year)
Mountain View (neither last year)
Cedar Shoals (had 1 student take test - that student has played at both NHBB and HSNCT)
Chattahoochee (had 1 student take test - that student has played at both NHBB and HSNCT)
Wesleyan (NHBB only last year)

Also, last week's top scorer in VA has played at HSNCT, and I would be shocked if at least 2-4 of the Ohio students who took the test hadn't been to both. So that means anywhere from 6-12 students who have taken the test, have in fact been to both; many others have done at least one or the other, and a number of other students (some of whom are 9th graders, for whom this is especially an invalid exercise) have had their teams go to both. So, I don't think this is having a large impact on things.
Those 42 students are not the "community". I'm willing to bet a decent percentage of those students find playing sub-optimal :chip: to be "fun" and "worthwhile". This past year you had powerhouses like LASA, Dorman, DCC, Hunter, Bellarmine, etc, all of whom have been in contention for national titles at HSNCT and/or NSC of recent, come to NHBB Nationals.
Chattahoochee is not "the community"? Athens Academy isn't? Christiansburg isn't? Blacksburg isn't? Westminster isn't? South Forsyth isn't? Again, Greg can clarify regarding Ohio, but I would be highly surprised if the same weren't also true there. Moreover, who says the other schools might not be on their way to becoming members of the community? As mentioned elsewhere, NHBB has done a lot to help new schools get involved in all aspects of quizbowl (including things like, e.g., loaning out 8 buzzer systems yesterday to help a middle school quizbowl tournament run). Quite frankly, Tom, I think many of those 42 students would highly object to your characterization. And that leaves aside the spurious nature of this argument in the first place - that somehow "community quizbowlers" are more valued than new schools and players (as we all were at one point) - who may be on their way to becoming more involved members of the greater quizbowl community. This sort of in group/out group mentality is highly damaging to the future of quizbowl. NHBB has done loads to broaden the circle - most of the new schools are happy that we have just reached out to them, and most of those who came to our Nationals last year had a great time at it. None of this negates the need to improve the logistics of our Nationals, but for many schools, either they didn't qualify for another Nationals, or the travel would have been prohibitively expensive. As they come back to ours, and we encourage them to play other quizbowl tournaments, including HSNCT/NSC, their expectations will grow, but so will the quality of our logistics.
Did you ever think to take a deep look to their opinions and evaluate their confidence in you and your tournament directing abilities (you know, since they, as did all the other teams that were there, shelled out a :capybara: load of money to come to D.C. to play your tournament) before you decided to go forward and add another irrelevant, expensive competition to your slate of events? Especially after the fact it was revealed that the pool of potential staffers significantly got smaller as a result of the date of NHBB Nationals coinciding with ACF Nationals?
Tom, I find it odd that you're calling USGC irrelevant or that you're "infuriated" since you were the first person to like it on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/USGeoChallenge
In my case, what's infuriating is having to personally put some of my money into our NHBB fund, for everything to be run late, dysfunctional, having competitions like the actual History Bee getting cut because of your inadequate preparations and then several months later being told "oh, we're adding another new awesome competition to our slate of events. I don't care what you have to say because I have 42 students who likely aren't good at quiz bowl who think I'm doing an awesome thing"
I would highly appreciate it if you could go back and find exactly where I say that "i don't care what you have to say because I have 42 students who likely (sic) aren't good at quiz bowl."
I wouldn't mind doing the GeoBee exam, because why the hell not? But what makes me and my team mates wary of doing NHBB nationals is the fact you've presented zero effective, problem-solving solutions to fixing what was the absolutely the worst tournament we've ever attended for next year.
This is also blatantly not true. Does having Eric Huff (who now works for NHBB full time) and is one of the most respected directors in the country as a logistics consultant not count? Does scrapping the notion of contention teams playing at sites on Saturday afternoon not count? Does moving to Washington, DC next month to spend five months where finding and training staff is my top priority not count? Again, please see the fixing NHBB Nationals thread and my rather long posts to this effect.
Also, so wait, you're criticizing/making false assumptions about the caliber and experience of people who did the USGC exam, and then saying that you want to do it yourself? Huh? I mean, I hope you do take it of course, but don't you think that it's a little unfair to make assumptions about who's doing this when a) you don't in fact know who took it, though you could certainly have asked me before posting and b) many of them, like yourself, are in fact good quizbowl players and active members of the community.
One thing you can ultimately do to help the confidence of those who may actually have something invested, be it interest or money, towards your tournament is to get rid of the trash and Jeopardy events. Most people don't care about that. If they did, we'd likely see them pop up at NSC or HSNCT by now. Your competition is far from perfect, and in the eyes of many, its far from worth paying into.
We are in fact going to scrap the Jeopardy events this year. As for the other trash events, see my forthcoming post on this. Beyond that, though, and more to the point, we have in fact taken major league steps to ensure that we don't in fact have a repeat of the problems we encountered last year. Some of this has been resolved already, some of this is in the process of being resolved. But I know what the stakes are for NHBB Nationals this year, and we would not be adding USGC to it, if I were worried about how on earth we're going to manage it. As Nationals approaches, I will be in touch with as many precise details to this effect as people want to hear.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Sniper, No Sniping! »

I'll reply to this out of chronological order.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:Tom, I find it odd that you're calling USGC irrelevant or that you're "infuriated" since you were the first person to like it on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/USGeoChallenge
For starters, how is Geography Olympiad (a competition that is not quiz bowl) related to History Bowl (a competition that is quiz bowl, is pyramidal, and is devoted exclusively to history and historically significant events)? As is the case with the trash and Jeopardy events, how is this related to quiz bowl or history, and why is there attention and resources devoted to it, while the main competition for which the majority of teams threw tons of money at still requires improvements? As for Facebook (first off, that's weird posting FB matters on here, IMO), I think it's neat Geography Olympiad is coming to the states. It doesn't mean I can't think this is a bad idea trying to run in it conjunction with a national tournament that logistically has shortcomings.
Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:Yeah, I find it highly unlikely among these 42 students that there's a student who has gone to both NHBB Nats and NAQT/NSC, and would therefore have a realistic and higher expectation of how a national competition should run. To even go further, how many actually attended an NHBB Nationals competition before?
Sure, I can accept being wrong here.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:
Those 42 students are not the "community". I'm willing to bet a decent percentage of those students find playing sub-optimal :chip: to be "fun" and "worthwhile". This past year you had powerhouses like LASA, Dorman, DCC, Hunter, Bellarmine, etc, all of whom have been in contention for national titles at HSNCT and/or NSC of recent, come to NHBB Nationals.
Chattahoochee is not "the community"? Athens Academy isn't? Christiansburg isn't? Blacksburg isn't? Westminster isn't? South Forsyth isn't? Again, Greg can clarify regarding Ohio, but I would be highly surprised if the same weren't also true there. Moreover, who says the other schools might not be on their way to becoming members of the community? As mentioned elsewhere, NHBB has done a lot to help new schools get involved in all aspects of quizbowl (including things like, e.g., loaning out 8 buzzer systems yesterday to help a middle school quizbowl tournament run). Quite frankly, Tom, I think many of those 42 students would highly object to your characterization.
Here, you took my statement out of context. Saying "those 42 students aren't the 'community'" isn't the same as "those 42 students aren't apart of the community". In my eyes, yes, those schools you mentioned are apart of the community, and I'm sure everyone can agree on that. But the community is much more than just those schools, it also includes the coaches who direct tournaments, the college players who volunteer by staffing and writing questions, and many more that work towards improving the well being of quiz bowl. I do admit not having an idea of who took the test and making the generalization that those students are either ignorant of greater quiz bowl or have small expectations of a national tournament is incredibly incorrect to begin with.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:And that leaves aside the spurious nature of this argument in the first place - that somehow "community quizbowlers" are more valued than new schools and players (as we all were at one point) - who may be on their way to becoming more involved members of the greater quizbowl community.
I do not see where you got this notion from. As I'm sure you know, those schools I mentioned travel across the country to play quiz bowl against other nationally competitive programs. They do have high expectations of how a nationals tournament is to be ran, likely because they usually go to at least two national tournaments a year in addition to playing high-profile circuit events (Harvard Fall, Texas Invitational) throughout the course of the fall and spring. I don't think "community quizbowlers" are more valued than new schools, I'm not sure where that was mentioned, though certainly I think opinions should be valued perhaps a little more with regards to certain aspects. And this goes for any team, be it a school from Hawaii or D.C., if they're really opening up their wallets to pay for travel costs and tournament/hotel fees for a national tournament, they're expecting at least something worth their money. Of course every school's opinion should be valued and given a fair look at when it comes to how well they enjoyed your nationals. However, when it comes to feedback on how to improve the logistics and the quality of the tournament, maybe special considerations should be given towards the opinions of the programs that have been to a ton of nationals or even help operate a large scale event, such as Dorman, Hunter, etc, as opposed to the new school who has only done NHBB and nothing else.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:NHBB has done loads to broaden the circle - most of the new schools are happy that we have just reached out to them, and most of those who came to our Nationals last year had a great time at it. None of this negates the need to improve the logistics of our Nationals.
I don't think anyone is arguing that NHBB has done a bad job of outreach, quite the contrary. I do think your statement of "most of those who came to our Nationals last year" is likely untrue, however. While I don't doubt some teams had a "great time", the majority of teams I spoke to (which is admittedly not every team that went) however did not and thought the logistical shortcomings took away from the experience.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:As they come back to ours, and we encourage them to play other quizbowl tournaments, including HSNCT/NSC, their expectations will grow, but so will the quality of our logistics.
That is in fact, assuring to hear. Let's hope it does.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:I'll reply to this out of chronological order.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:Tom, I find it odd that you're calling USGC irrelevant or that you're "infuriated" since you were the first person to like it on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/USGeoChallenge
For starters, how is Geography Olympiad (a competition that is not quiz bowl) related to History Bowl (a competition that is quiz bowl, is pyramidal, and is devoted exclusively to history and historically significant events)? As is the case with the trash and Jeopardy events, how is this related to quiz bowl or history, and why is there attention and resources devoted to it, while the main competition for which the majority of teams threw tons of money at still requires improvements? As for Facebook (first off, that's weird posting FB matters on here, IMO), I think it's neat Geography Olympiad is coming to the states. It doesn't mean I can't think this is a bad idea trying to run in it conjunction with a national tournament that logistically has shortcomings.
For Geography, I never said that they were related beyond the fact that a) I'm running both, as is known, and b) the qualifying is going to include a buzzer-based component. For Jeopardy, we're not doing that this year, so it's a moot point. For "trash", please keep in mind that these are Sports History and Entertainment History Bees we're talking about. When we write those sets this year, the history aspect is what is stressed, and as far as it being qb, related, well, these are pyramidal tossups after all - not sure what more you're looking for there. As for the amount of time/effort being devoted to it, again, I'll post to that effect later today.
Finally, as for thinking it's a bad idea to run it this way, that's your prerogative, but I am committed to running it in an efficient manner, and believe that that can be done this year. In my post this evening on the matter, I'll discuss a few things behind my thinking for the Friday night events, since you seem interested in the matter, and I'm sure others are too.
Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:
Those 42 students are not the "community". I'm willing to bet a decent percentage of those students find playing sub-optimal :chip: to be "fun" and "worthwhile". This past year you had powerhouses like LASA, Dorman, DCC, Hunter, Bellarmine, etc, all of whom have been in contention for national titles at HSNCT and/or NSC of recent, come to NHBB Nationals.
Chattahoochee is not "the community"? Athens Academy isn't? Christiansburg isn't? Blacksburg isn't? Westminster isn't? South Forsyth isn't? Again, Greg can clarify regarding Ohio, but I would be highly surprised if the same weren't also true there. Moreover, who says the other schools might not be on their way to becoming members of the community? As mentioned elsewhere, NHBB has done a lot to help new schools get involved in all aspects of quizbowl (including things like, e.g., loaning out 8 buzzer systems yesterday to help a middle school quizbowl tournament run). Quite frankly, Tom, I think many of those 42 students would highly object to your characterization.
Here, you took my statement out of context. Saying "those 42 students aren't the 'community'" isn't the same as "those 42 students aren't apart of the community". In my eyes, yes, those schools you mentioned are apart of the community, and I'm sure everyone can agree on that. But the community is much more than just those schools, it also includes the coaches who direct tournaments, the college players who volunteer by staffing and writing questions, and many more that work towards improving the well being of quiz bowl. I do admit not having an idea of who took the test and making the generalization that those students are either ignorant of greater quiz bowl or have small expectations of a national tournament is incredibly incorrect to begin with.
I know the community is much larger than that, but come on, we've only had 3 competitions where students have had the opportunity to do it. I obviously know the community is much more than 42 high schoolers; my point is that it seems that this is something that students who are members of the community are eager to compete in. Coaches, staffers, etc. aren't really germane to discuss in this vein, since they're ineligible to compete.
Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:And that leaves aside the spurious nature of this argument in the first place - that somehow "community quizbowlers" are more valued than new schools and players (as we all were at one point) - who may be on their way to becoming more involved members of the greater quizbowl community.
I do not see where you got this notion from. As I'm sure you know, those schools I mentioned travel across the country to play quiz bowl against other nationally competitive programs. They do have high expectations of how a nationals tournament is to be ran, likely because they usually go to at least two national tournaments a year in addition to playing high-profile circuit events (Harvard Fall, Texas Invitational) throughout the course of the fall and spring. I don't think "community quizbowlers" are more valued than new schools, I'm not sure where that was mentioned, though certainly I think opinions should be valued perhaps a little more with regards to certain aspects. And this goes for any team, be it a school from Hawaii or D.C., if they're really opening up their wallets to pay for travel costs and tournament/hotel fees for a national tournament, they're expecting at least something worth their money. Of course every school's opinion should be valued and given a fair look at when it comes to how well they enjoyed your nationals. However, when it comes to feedback on how to improve the logistics and the quality of the tournament, maybe special considerations should be given towards the opinions of the programs that have been to a ton of nationals or even help operate a large scale event, such as Dorman, Hunter, etc, as opposed to the new school who has only done NHBB and nothing else.
Sure - teams who have experienced more Nationals are more likely to have valuable suggestions since their wealth of experience is much greater. But on the other hand, it seemed as if your were implying that really what mattered was whether the USGC players so far were from quizbowl schools or not. I'm not sure why it really makes a difference one way or the other - everyone wants an efficient National tournament, yours truly more than anyone this year.
Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:NHBB has done loads to broaden the circle - most of the new schools are happy that we have just reached out to them, and most of those who came to our Nationals last year had a great time at it. None of this negates the need to improve the logistics of our Nationals.
I don't think anyone is arguing that NHBB has done a bad job of outreach, quite the contrary. I do think your statement of "most of those who came to our Nationals last year" is likely untrue, however. While I don't doubt some teams had a "great time", the majority of teams I spoke to (which is admittedly not every team that went) however did not and thought the logistical shortcomings took away from the experience.
All I can go off of is the email feedback I got, which was 95% positive. This is different from saying that everything was great and that nothing needs to be changed. The point is simply that maybe certain newer schools also have an easier time accepting that a tournament in its second year, (and in its first year of being run with roughly 200 teams at a new location with rebracketing, etc) is going to have growing pains. As I mentioned earlier, this process was also the case when we started running regional tournaments, but we had a quick learning curve there too, after 2-3 events. I'm not saying that we can't keep improving with regards to regionals either, but I think when doing anything for the first or second time, there's a natural process of learning-by-doing at work. Obviously, the lessons do need to be learned, but in contrast with what you had said earlier, I think I've been very clear about important specific steps we are in fact taking.
Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:As they come back to ours, and we encourage them to play other quizbowl tournaments, including HSNCT/NSC, their expectations will grow, but so will the quality of our logistics.
That is in fact, assuring to hear. Let's hope it does.
It will.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Cheynem »

It seems like you and Tom may be discussing a little at cross purposes here. The fact that there is a lot of interest and outreach for people to play the Geography Challenge is great, and I am certain that you will get an interested field among players who play quizbowl regularly and those that don't. That's great. That's admirable. I don't think anyone would or should deny that. What I am uncertain of is the ability of NHBB to take that interested and excited field and make a well-run, well-organized, high-quality tournament based on what has happened the last few years. That's what, regardless of the phraseology Tom used, I think is what people are uncertain over.

So, short answer: When someone expresses reservations about this being run well and your first response is to point out the number of teams you've gotten to play it, that is not really addressing the same concerns.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Setting Tom aside, I just want to clarify my original point. I totally concede that teams are interested in this event. In fact, it is actively cool that teams are interested in this event, which I find interesting. That is totally unrelated to my concern. My concern is whether it's actually feasible or wise for you personally to run this event right now, given how much else you have to do and fix and prove with the competition you started already. I'm eager to hear what the active plans are to ensure that this competition will actually be done well (which is all the more difficult given the high interest in it). I'm not convinced that insisting on running a bunch of trash questions for the staff at the same time is a good first step to doing this successfully. You will have an especially limited number of people in the hotel in the first place, and letting NHB staffers play a rather frivolous event rather than help run a national competition will make it even more difficult to get this off the ground at all.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

First of all, it's an individual event, so it's 42 students, not teams, just to clarify. Beyond that, let me clear up a few things regarding my intentions for Friday evening at NHBB. As far as where things stand with the Entertainment and Sports History Bees, right now, my plan is to in fact hold both of them, but with the following differences from last year:

1. Both will, for now, be capped at 60 registrants a piece. That should allow most people who really want to play a chance to play in them without them getting out of control. All we need for that is 12 rooms (which we will have), and 12 readers (ditto). If we, as is my intent, end up having significantly more readers, then I will potentially allow that too rise, but the priority here is clearly the US Geography Challenge.

2. We will not bother having separate open and junior divisions for the sports and entertainment history bees this year. This is a good idea in general, but for now, it's an added level of complexity that does not add much in general. Some may say that about the Sports and Entertainment Bees in general this year, but we will certainly have enough trained staff to handle running two 60 person Bees.

3. There are a slew of internal reasons why one should expect things will run much smoother this year. These include, but are not limited to the following:
A. I am not overseeing an effort to write 15,000 questions for the History Channel's website this year.
B. I am not going to be spending six weeks on the road in the lead up to Nationals like I did last year running the middle school History Bee. In fact, my involvement with the entire middle and elementary school History Bee is very limited this year, since Eric Huff and Nick Clusserath are now working full time on it.
C. Likewise, last year I handled the bulk of the logistics for our Regional tournaments. This year, Greg Bossick is primarily doing that.
D. I am moving to DC next month. Coordinating all aspects of our Nationals will be much easier (including finding qualified readers and training them above all) being based out of Dupont Circle, as opposed to Northern New Jersey
E. We have an additional year of experience (including our first year at the Crystal Gateway Marriott) under our belts and a whole slew of lessons learned from that.
F. I am not getting married three weeks after Nationals this year.
G. My wife, in fact, will be helping me with logistics on a regular basis starting next month - last year, she was only involved with our international tournaments.
H. We have already been in talks with various experienced people to help out things like staff outreach and training, stats, food arrangements, etc. Much of this is still in the works though, which is why I haven't stressed it more yet.
I. I've mentioned numerous other logistics changes (e.g. only 3, not 5 playoff rounds on Saturday; not going out to Mt. Vernon; having all contention teams play at the hotel on Saturday afternoon; the use of unambiguous scoring posters) that will help solve many other issues.
J. Staffers will only be permitted to play the sports and entertainment bees this year if we have fully assured we have enough qualified staff on hand to handle the Geography Challenge, and staffing the 12 intended rooms for the Sports and Entertainment Bees.

4. The biggest issue regarding both the Bee on Sunday, and the Friday night events is that many people were confused with where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, and moderators were confused with regards to how many people to expect in their rooms in any given round. Part of this stems from an overreaching desire to accommodate last-minute entries last year. That prevented us from having an effective list of students for each round printed right on the scoresheet and from having the Bee draw (including for the Saturday night Bees) well in advance. This year, with Bowl registration to close about four weeks in advance, and Bee registration to close about three weeks in advance, we should have plenty of time to post these and send them out at least 10 days in advance of Nationals. We can then make minor changes if people drop, but effectively, this removes a tremendous amount of confusion and uncertainty regarding who needs to be in certain places at certain times. Likewise, moderators will also be assigned to rooms weeks in advance. Not needing to worry about letters A-I as listed above this year will go a long way to helping to make this happen. Having 5 full-time staffers - more than any other organization I know of - will also help.

Look, I understand people's concerns, and I don't mean to show that I'm deaf to calls to improve our Nationals. From what I've stated here and elsewhere, any coherent reading shows the exact opposite to be the case. But I think that people need to understand the full situation here, and there's clear evidence that people are often saying things that just don't make sense. I never said fixing Nationals was the "only" thing I'd be doing this year for NHBB (though I have said, and still maintain that it's my top priority) and I have clearly not "presented zero fixes to the problems we had last year". If you take all of the above reasons into account, I hope you can see why I do not believe this is going to put us in a position where we repeat the mistakes of last year. Going forward, I'm always open to suggestions, and will try and be as open as possible about my efforts to improve things. I hope that helps assuage people's concerns so that people approach our Nationals with the excitement I hope it should generate as opposed to apprehension about the logistics.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

I still don't think you understand my objection. You've made a list of things A through J that you expect will help make NHBB run better. This includes the fact that you have removed several other obligations from your plate. My whole observation is that the Geography Challenge is another, very large obligation added to your plate, which cancels out a lot of the benefits you'd otherwise accrue from freeing up your time and in many ways puts you back to square one. At bare minimum, it's a huge thing which you will have run on Friday on the exact weekend when you need to make NHBB a logistical success. How do you plan to make this event, the Geography event, a success too?

Related to that, I really think it's just not a good idea to give several prospective staffers a pass to play trash questions, when this legitimate geography competition needs to work at literally the same time. In fact, I think it's a terrible idea. Of the 60 people you claim can register for either bee, and the 12 needed to staff either one, some portion (probably many - it's no secret the trash is there in part to motivate staffers to come) will be non-high schooler staffers. When you're running a competition on Friday evening the first - the only - priority with non-high schoolers should be getting them to run this competition. Numerically the odds are against you when you've already lost somewhere between a dozen and 144 people to these diversions.

I am aware that this is an individual event.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Great Bustard »

RyuAqua wrote:I still don't think you understand my objection. You've made a list of things A through J that you expect will help make NHBB run better. This includes the fact that you have removed several other obligations from your plate. My whole observation is that the Geography Challenge is another, very large obligation added to your plate, which cancels out a lot of the benefits you'd otherwise accrue from freeing up your time and in many ways puts you back to square one. At bare minimum, it's a huge thing which you will have run on Friday on the exact weekend when you need to make NHBB a logistical success. How do you plan to make this event, the Geography event, a success too?
Matt, I understand and appreciate your concerns here, but I think you're overstating your argument. I don't think you're really aware what sort of time this frees up in my schedule vis a vis last year. To look at just a few things:
1. Coordinating 15,000 questions and writing about 1000 of them myself - took roughly 5 hours a week over a period of 20 weeks or so
2. Planning the National History Bee Middle School Competition from scratch - took on average 15-20 hours a week over all of last year. This year, it's taking 2-5 hours of my time per week since Eric Huff and Nick Clusserath are working on this exclusively.
3. Planning my wedding - my wife took care of most of this, but still, took about 5-10 hours a week for the two months or so prior to Nationals
4. Spending 6 weeks on the road from Feb. 6-Mar. 18 - This was the big one. I was traveling on average about 6 hours a day over this time without internet, plus spent roughly 15 hours a week at middle school tournaments in this period. So figure close to 60 hours a week, 5-11 weeks prior to Nationals.
5. Regional tournament coordination - Probably spent about 10-20 hours a week on this from November-March last year; again, Greg Bossick is handling 90% of this for this year.

Again, absolutely none of this is stuff on my plate this year at the levels it was last year (if it is at all), and combined, all of this stuff occupied the majority of my time from September-April of last year. By contrast, most of the heavy lifting I need to do for USGC (e.g. going to the International Geography Olympiad in Cologne, building the website, designing the competition, and going to the National Council for Geography Education conference in Texas) has already been done. My partner in this, Enrico Contolini, will be handling most of the score reporting going forward, while Greg will be helping with making sure tournament directors know how to administer the Regionals. Raynell Cooper is writing the Regional exams and the non-qb components of Nationals, and HSAPQ has agreed to write the quizbowl component. I will coach the National team and take them to Japan next summer, but that's almost entirely a post-Nationals thing. I estimate that from now through April 1, USGC will take no more than 1-2 hours per week of my time. If you look at the above calculations, you'll see why I don't think this is overreaching.
Now, as far as coordinating the Nationals component goes, there certainly is a decent amount of work involved there, but given the amount of staff we need to have on hand no matter what for that weekend, and knowing that we can count on a good amount of experienced coaches to read on top of that (last year, 18 coaches signed up to read on Friday evening), I am confident this will go off just fine. As I mentioned, the biggest problem last year with regards both to Friday and Sunday was the fact that people (both players and readers) didn't have room assignments well in advance. That was partly a function of a lack of time, partly a function of some issues with the hotel which have been resolved, and partly a result of trying to accommodate same-day signups for the Bee and the Friday night events, which was unnecessary and will not be done this year. This year, all of this can be coordinated long in advance.
RyuAqua wrote:Related to that, I really think it's just not a good idea to give several prospective staffers a pass to play trash questions, when this legitimate geography competition needs to work at literally the same time. In fact, I think it's a terrible idea. Of the 60 people you claim can register for either bee, and the 12 needed to staff either one, some portion (probably many - it's no secret the trash is there in part to motivate staffers to come) will be non-high schooler staffers. When you're running a competition on Friday evening the first - the only - priority with non-high schoolers should be getting them to run this competition. Numerically the odds are against you when you've already lost somewhere between a dozen and 144 people to these diversions.
We will make it clear to staff that our overwhelming priority is having enough experienced and trained readers and staff for the USGC, that a much lower priority is having staff for the other Bees, and that then and only then, if everything is staffed to the gills (with allowances for staff who will cancel last minute - another lesson learned from last year), will we allow any staff to play. The Sports and Entertainment History Bees are there for students and coaches more so than staff. When I update the Friday night events page for Nationals, this will be made clear. I don't think there were more than 1-3 staffers who came for the Sports and/or Entertainment History Bees last year who otherwise would not have come.
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Re: Announcing The United States Geography Challenge

Post by Tanay »

Paula Pareto Optimality wrote:though certainly I think opinions should be valued perhaps a little more with regards to certain aspects.
What does this mean?
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